A Short Message Service Center (SMSC) is a network element in the mobile telephone network. Its purpose is to store, forward, convert and deliver Short Message Service (SMS) messages.
The full designation of an SMSC according to 3GPP is Short Message Service - Service Center (SMS-SC).
SMS can be directed in several ways:
The tasks of an SMSC can be described as
When a user sends a text message (SMS message) to another user, the message gets stored in the SMSC (Short Message Service Center), which delivers it to the destination user when they are available. This is a store and forward option.
An SMS center (SMSC) is responsible for handling the SMS operations of a wireless network.
SMSCs can be used to interface with other applications, for example a spreadsheet can interface with the SMSC allowing messages to be sent SMS from an Excel spreadsheet, or to send an SMS from Excel. Inbound messages to a long number or short code can also be passed through the SMSC allowing m2m communications or Telematics.
An SMS message is stored temporarily in the SMS center if the recipient mobile phone is unavailable. It is possible on most mobile handsets to specify an expiry period after which the SMS message will be deleted from the SMS center. Once deleted, the SMS message will no longer be available for dispatch to the recipient mobile phone (even if it comes on line). The validity period should be regarded by the handset user as a request, as the SMSC itself can be configured to ignore or otherwise handle message delivery schedules.
The SMS sender needs to set a flag in the SMS message to notify the SMS center that they want the status report about the delivery of this SMS message. This is usually done by changing a setting on the mobile handset.